Cries of the Unheard

Over a year ago

by Allison Karl

Human Trafficking. The word simply sends chills down my spine. It is a topic that, if someone were to bring it up a few years ago, no one would know what you were talking about. In the recent years, it has become more and more highlighted. It is the selling of young girls and boys anywhere from 7 and up into slavery. It can be in factories but most often, it is in sexual prostitution. In places all over the world this is taking place. Two main ones that I can think of are Cambodia and India. Girls and boys, just children, are being sold to traffickers for pennies. Their families are told that their children will be working as a maid or some other semi-glamorous job and that at anytime, they can buy them back. In reality, this young child has just been sold to be a sex slave and has ultimately disappeared off the planet never to be found by their families again. The hollow look into the faces of 9 year old girls who have been raped and beaten is more than anyone should be able to bear. Girls who are tortured and threatened everyday to keep them from running away is something that we as Americans can hardly even begin to grasp. They are told that if they leave that their families will be killed and thus the must perform their "duties." To think that these girls have more sexual experience than most adult women these days is horrifying. It is like thinking of that little girl in your neighborhood who is playing with dolls and going into the 3rd grade will the next day, be swept up to become a slave to men who will abuse her horribly and not doing anything about it. It is time to give a voice to the unheard cries of the young boys and girls that have no voice.